Asai Bayai Lyrics by Anton Jones

Gazing at the sea, swaying its body,
it tore through the banks and flowed on.
The Nilwala, the gentle blue river of Matara,
called away the people who stood on this shore,
gathered them into the arms of death,
and drowned all of Sri Lanka in sorrow.

To watch the Vesak celebrations,
to the city of Matara
crowds came from every direction.
Along the Nilwala river,
some happily climbed aboard a boat,
wanting to take a ride.

“Asai Bayai” was the name of that boat,
a journey from which there was no coming back.
A water demon, death in the middle of the river,
it took a number of lives as its offering.

They climbed onto the boat,
floating along in joy,
when it was dragged fast into the current.
The boat struck against a branch,
and before anyone knew it, it sank in the water.
The fate of them all was sealed.

As the Vesak moon was rising,
as the dead bodies drifted,
relatives and loved ones wept.
As their hearts ached with grief,
as their eyes grew heavy with tears,
the bodies were brought to the pile of the dead.

“Asai Bayai” was the name of that boat,
a journey from which there was no coming back.
A water demon, death in the middle of the river,
it took a number of lives as its offering.

Unable to swim,
the young man drowned,
and the young woman was left alone in the world.
Saying this is how fate goes,
he took his last journey,
and his parents and loved ones wept.

Hearing of the disaster that happened,
all of Ruhuna was shrouded in grief,
mourning for many days.
Lifting both hands to the sky,
they prayed to the gods and said,
let such disasters never happen again.

“Asai Bayai” was the name of that boat..

This is a tragic story song, the kind that turns a real disaster into a lament. It tells of a boat called “Asai Bayai” (the name means “eager and afraid”) that capsized on the Nilwala river in Matara during the Vesak season, when crowds had come from all over to see the lantern displays and celebrations. Some of them decided to take a pleasure ride on the river, and the boat overturned, drowning many of them. The song carries the grief of that day for the whole southern region.

The river itself is made into the villain of the piece. The Nilwala, usually described as the “gentle blue river” of Matara, here becomes a “water demon” (diya rakusa) and “death in the middle of the river,” a thing that called people to the shore and pulled them into the arms of death. By making the calm, familiar river into a devouring monster, the lyric captures how a place of festival and joy turned, in a moment, into the scene of a catastrophe. The boat’s own cheerful name, “eager and afraid,” becomes bitterly ironic once you know it carried people on a trip from which they never returned.

The Vesak imagery makes the loss heavier. Vesak is the holiest, brightest night in the Buddhist calendar, lit with lanterns and lamps, and the song sets the horror against it deliberately. As the “Vesak moon was rising,” the time when everyone should have been celebrating, the dead bodies were instead drifting on the water and being carried to be laid out, while families wept with tears running down their faces. The contrast between the festival light and the grief in the dark is the heart of the song.

It closes the way these laments often do, by widening out from the boat to a whole community and reaching for meaning in the loss. A young man who could not swim drowns and leaves his sweetheart alone in the world; his parents and friends mourn; all of Ruhuna, the old name for the deep south, is shrouded in sorrow for days. In the end the people lift their hands to the sky and pray to the gods that a disaster like this never happens again. It is less a song to enjoy than one to remember the dead by, the kind of piece that keeps a real tragedy alive in people’s hearts.